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The 31st year of Oshkosh's Waterfest begins Thursday with a Leach Amphitheater show headlined by Styx.

Ahead of the new nine-show season, here's a look at the headliners — with a quick refresher on what you likely already know about the bands and a little bit of information that might not have yet found its way into your brain.

STYX (THURSDAY)

What you know: Styx has a stack of hits, including “Lady,” “Come Sail Away,” “Mr. Roboto,” “Renegade,” “Too Much Time on my Hands” and “Show Me the Way,” and had a remarkable run of five platinum albums from 1977 to 1983. Hailing from Chicago, Styx certainly has no problem drawing crowds in Midwestern cities like Oshkosh.

What you might not know: The voice on the Styx songs that have been classic rock radio staples for decades, Dennis DeYoung, split from the band in 1999. Tommy Shaw, James Young and Chuck Panozzo remain from the late 1970s and early ’80s heyday. Both Styx and DeYoung, who tours as a solo act, have visited the Fox Valley in recent years. Styx played Rock USA last year and DeYoung played Waterfest in 2011.

38 SPECIAL (JUNE 23)

What you know: The Southern rockers’ early 1980s peak produced a handful of songs that still fill out classic rock playlists, including “Rockin’ into the Night,” “Hold On Loosely,” “If I’d Been the One” and “Caught Up in You.”

What you might not know: The band was founded by the duo of Donnie Van Zant and Don Barnes in the 1970s. Van Zant is the younger brother of original Lynyrd Skynyrd singer Ronnie Van Zant. Years after Ronnie’s death in 1977, a third Van Zant brother, Johnny, took over as the frontman for Skynyrd (and remains at the helm today). Donnie has since retired from music (38 Special included) due to medical issues.

KANSAS (JULY 14)

What you know: “Carry On Wayward Son” and “Dust in the Wind.” Though they have more than a dozen studio albums to their credit, those two songs are as recognizable as any from their late ’70s pinnacle. To illustrate: Those two tracks have an average of 53 million streams on Spotify. In contrast, their third most-streamed song has less than 7 million plays — and it’s an alternate version of “Wayward Son.”

What you might not know: Keeping with an unfortunate trend among bands more than 30 years into their careers, Kansas now carries on without their longtime vocalist Steve Walsh. Walsh, whose voice is at the forefront of the band’s classic material, stepped away in 2014. Original drummer Phil Ehart and guitarist Rich Williams still carry the Kansas torch from the glory days of the ’70s.

GEORGE THOROGOOD AND THE DESTROYERS (JULY 21)

What you know: Thorogood is known for his collection of hits that make listeners feel infinitely cooler with the press of the play button. “Bad to the Bone,” “I Drink Alone,” “Who Do You Love,” “Move It On Over” and “Get a Haircut” are part of the repertoire he’ll roll into Oshkosh.

What you might not know: As is a tradition in the blues world — just ask Led Zeppelin — some of the songs the now 66-year-old Thorogood helped popularize date back far beyond the 1980s. “Move It On Over,” for instance, is a Hank Williams song from the ’40s. “Who Do You Love?” is Bo Diddley’s from the ’50s. And “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer” is a combination of two blues songs from more than 50 years ago.

ERIC BURDON AND THE ANIMALS (AUG. 11)

What you know: “There is ... a house ... in New Orleans.” Several decades after the British invasion, the band best known for “The House of the Rising Sun” in 1964 comes to Waterfest fronted by original deep-voiced frontman Eric Burdon. Other Animals hits include “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” and “We Gotta Get Out of This Place.”

What you might not know: The 75-year-old singer’s band has undergone plenty of lineup changes over the years, as expected in a run spanning more than 50 years. The Animals were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994 but Burdon no-showed.

BLUES TRAVELER (AUG. 18)

What you know: Stacked up against the rest of this year’s headliners, the New Jersey band that formed in the late 1980s and broke through in 1994 seems like a gang of moppets. Their “four” album had their biggest hits, including the Grammy Award-winning “Run-Around” and “Hook.”

What you might not know: Harmonica-playing John Popper and company long ago endeared themselves to the jam band scene in the ’90s and, though the mainstream spotlight hasn’t been as bright, they’ve been going strong ever since. Their 12th studio album, “Blow Up the Moon,” arrived in 2015.

TOTO (SEPT. 1)

What you know: Perhaps you’re noticing a pattern: Toto’s best-known work stems from a run of releases in the late 1970s and early ’80s, which produced lasting hits like “Hold the Line,” “Rosanna” and the hugely successful “Africa.” The 1982 album “Toto IV,” which featured “Rosanna” and “Africa,” won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 1983. “Rosanna” also won Record of the Year.

What you might not know: Though forever tied to the early 1980s, Toto has mostly kept active into the 2010s. Lineups have fluctuated over the nearly 40 years and there have been periods of inactivity, but in 2015 Toto released “Toto XIV,” the band’s first studio album in a decade. Members of Toto also have played on more than 5,000 albums and those recordings have racked up more than 200 Grammy nominations. (Needless to say, the guys in Toto have more to their resumes than the blessing of the rains down in Africa.)

THE SCHEDULE

►​ June 16: Styx, Sonny Landreth, Christopher Gold and the New Old Things